09 November 2016

This is Wake Forest University's President Hatch's message to the university community today, November 9, 2016, the morning after the election. It is well worth reading and remembering:

Dear Wake Forest students, faculty and staff,

What we have experienced in the last several months has been one of the most divisive periods in recent American history. It has brought out some of the least admirable traits of leaders and citizens alike.

But today we have as much of a decision as we had yesterday. Whether you were greeted with joy or despair this morning, we have a choice in how we treat one another. We are a community that profoundly values intellectual discourse and diverse viewpoints. Even more important, we are people who profoundly value one another.

Today and in the weeks and months ahead, we must live up to our ideals as a community. We are a community in which everyone needs to feel safe and welcome. Our words and behavior affect those around us. We can use them to encourage and lift up others, or we can use them to harm and tear down. Our Wake Forest community is built on the foundation of mutual respect, kindness and honor. Essential to further building that foundation is mutual exchanges: curiosity, weighing ideas, talking out opinions, and listening to a variety of perspectives are all a vital part of education. So we will all join in asking questions and having conversations, and as we do so, we carry the spirit of Pro Humanitate in our hearts.

11 October 2016

"Wake Forest embraces the value of each individual and rejects any form of bigotry, discrimination or hatred directed against members of our institution. We seek to cultivate an environment which fosters the inclusion and engagement of everyone, regardless of individual differences. Embracing diversity of thought will remain a priority in the strategic principles of the collegiate university, for doing so is instrumental to our University’s ability to maintain a competitive advantage. As a liberal arts institution, our purpose is to facilitate academic diversity by maintaining an atmosphere in which mutual respect and intellectual pluralism flourish. Moreover, understanding the importance of including different perspectives and experiences is a vital component of our motto, Pro Humanitate."—Central excerpt from "Dear Fellow Members of the Wake Forest Community" letter from Barbee Myers Oakes, Ph.D., Chief Diversity Officer and Assistant Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Wake Forest University Office of Diversity and Inclusion (n.d.; italics in original)

04 October 2016

"In other universities the teacher is prohibited from receiving any honorary or fee from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the whole of the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this case, set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set it. It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does, or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a lover of labour, it is his interest to employ that activity in any way, from which he can derive some advantage, rather than in the performance of his duty, from which he can derive none."--Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), V.i.f.7.

09 September 2016

"The chief good is something complete. Therefore, if there is only one complete end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most complete of these will be what we are seeking. Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more complete than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more complete than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call complete without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.

"Now such a thing happiness [eudaimonia], above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else, but honor, pleasure, reason, and every excellence we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that through them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself."

25 June 2016

It is sometimes said that you’re not doing anything
interesting if no one’s complaining. If so, I suppose you’re really
doing something interesting if people are making things up about you to
complain.

As I have written before, I have been interested in eudaimonia for a long time. “Eudaimonia”
is Aristotle’s word for the highest good for human beings; it’s our ultimate
end, the end for the sake of which we do everything else, something that itself
is pursued only for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else. So what
is it, exactly? The word is often translated as “happiness,” though perhaps “flourishing”
is a better English word. In my conception, eudaimonia is the full exercise of
one’s abilities in worthy activities; it is the cognizance that one’s life is
worth having been lived, that one made full use of one’s capacities and one’s
opportunities and lived virtuously while doing so. If at the end of one’s life
one can look back and believe that one lived well and fully, then one led a
eudaimonic life.

Achieving a eudaimonic life requires that one be deliberate
about what one’s life purposes are, that one think deeply about what a state of
eudaimonia would constitute for oneself, and one then reverse engineers one’s
activities from that final state through the intermediate stages of one’s life
to one’s actions today. Am I doing the things today that will lead to the
medium-term goals that will conduce to my ultimate goal of eudaimonia? We might
make mistakes or change our minds over time, but a rationally ordered moral
life is one in which we work out these plans—subject, of course, to regular
reexamination—and order our activities accordingly.

In my scholarly field of political economy, the ultimate goal
of eudaimonia translates into a desire to live in a humane and just society. A
humane and just society depends on a variety of properly ordered institutions—political,
economic, moral, cultural. One part of those institutions is, I believe, a
properly functioning market economy that enables and encourages honorable
business, which is characterized by mutually voluntary cooperation that creates
genuine value—that is, that makes people’s lives better off. But the nature of
value and betterment, the nature of honorable business, the nature of a
properly functioning market economy, and the nature of a humane and just
society are all ultimately informed by eudaimonia: all of them must be in the
service of enabling people to lead lives of virtue and purpose, to construct
for themselves lives of dignity and fulfillment, lives that enable and
constitute deep human happiness.

The study of eudaimonia and the institutions that enable it
does not line up well with partisan politics. And this is where the complaining
begins.

My desire to study eudaimonia, and even to create an interdisciplinary community of
scholars studying it, has been criticized as being in fact partisan. One recent critic called it “hard right market fundamentalist ideology,” a claim that is
difficult to square with the open and skeptical nature of the inquiry itself.
Another critic has portrayed my concern for eudaimonia as merely a subterfuge,
a pleasant-sounding veneer meant to cloak hidden political agendas. For these
critics, the fact that the Koch brothers also talk about well-being means that
anyone else who talks about well-being (or eudaimonia)—or who has spoken about eudaimonia in a venue that was sponsored by the Charles Koch Institute—must therefore really be, despite outward appearances, part of a
conspiracy to fool the public. Thus my interest in eudaimonia must be a ruse to
allow me to “penetrate” academia, so that, once in, I can let my true corporate
toady flags fly.

It is hard to take such fevered conspiracy theories
seriously, and if the critics who had written such things had spoken to me before writing them, I could have disabused them of the silliness of such
claims. Or at least I like to think I could have, but perhaps not. People who
view the world in us-versus-them
terms, who believe everything is really about politics, who believe they are
already in possession of all political truths, or who think that everyone is
really just engaging in Machiavellian power struggles have a hard time
believing that political-economic scholarship could actually be open and
skeptical, driven by a search for the truth wherever it lies, without regard
for allegiances to parties or political agendas.

When I recently explained my goals and interests to one such
critic, he said, “Well, then I look forward to seeing progressive studies
coming out of your Center.” That statement entirely misses the point. I am not interested
in publishing “progressive” studies, any more than I am interested in
publishing “conservative” studies. I am interested in publishing work that
enhances our understanding of the world—regardless of whether it lines up with
progressive, conservative, or any other political agendas. No political litmus
tests, no ideological priors, no work that already knows the conclusions it
wants to reach. That would be partisanship, not scholarship. It would be
inconsistent with the purpose of scholarly inquiry, not to mention inconsistent
with the purpose of a university. And I hold eudaimonia to be too important to
be limited to petty political allegiances.

Now, do I think that markets are part of the political-economic
institutions that enable eudaimonia? Yes. I could be wrong about that, but I’ve
been studying it for some time and I find the evidence compelling. To dissuade
me, you would have to do more than tell me that the Koch brothers (or Bono) also think
so: you’d have to show me your evidence to the contrary. Do I believe that
individual human freedom is necessary for eudaimonia? Yes. Again, I could be
wrong, but, again, I’d have to hear your argument or see your evidence. Do I believe that a
government that protects every individual’s life, property, and voluntary
promises, but does little else, enhances people’s prosperity and thus plays a
part in enabling eudaimonia? Yes, but I come to that conclusion based on long
study of arguments and evidence, not because of ideological priors. Do my
conclusions align with Republican party politics? Partly. Do my conclusions
align with Democratic party politics? Partly. (I note, for example, that way
back in 2006 I argued that same-sex marriage should be legalized—long before,
say, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton changed their minds and decided they agreed.)

As far as I’m concerned, however, any coincidence between my conclusions and the
positions political parties take is accidental and, even more, irrelevant to
what I’m interested in. It’s not that I have no interest in politics—though Bas
van der Vossen has made what I think is a plausible argument that philosophers
should not concern themselves with politics—it’s rather that in my professional
capacity as a scholar and teacher, my interests simply lie elsewhere.

Scholarship should be about seeking the truth, not
confirming of one’s prejudices; and teaching should be about education, not
indoctrination. One’s published work should be evaluated on its merits, not on
whether it aligns with one’s prior political allegiances. If that offends the
sensibilities of those whose primary goal is political victory, of whatever
sort, then so be it. If that leads some particularly ideological people to try to
discredit, not one’s work, but one’s character,
in the hopes that doing so will enhance the chance of political victory for their own team, well, that is, while unfortunate and even dispiriting, nevertheless
the price one apparently must pay when attempting to conduct open and
nonideological inquiry.

The first duty of a scholar is to seek the truth, however through
a glass darkly we see it and without regard for what pretenses or prejudices it
might offend. It is a duty I accept, even cherish, and it constitutes the first
plank of the professional oath I take as a scholar and teacher. Alignment with
partisan political positions is no part of that professional oath, and is
indeed inconsistent with it. If that invites the wrath of some narrowly partisan
creatures of our political landscape, so be it.

On the other hand, if people who come to conclusions
different from my own about what constitutes eudaimonia or what the
institutions are that enable or encourage it wish to join the conversation,
welcome! It is only in the crucible of open and spirited debate that we stand a
chance of progressing toward truth. Honest disagreement is not something to be
avoided. On the contrary, it is to be welcomed as an embodiment of the noble
millennia-long tradition inaugurated by Socrates of scrutiny, questioning, and
skepticism that serve the highest aims of human inquiry.

11 March 2016

From his 1871 The Descent of Man (pt. 1, chap. 5), Charles Darwin's explanation for why we seem to instinctively like the ideas of "giving back" and sacrifice for the common good:

"There can be no doubt that [during 'primeval' times] a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to give aid to each other and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection."

08 March 2016

Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son has always bothered me. Here it is, in case you don't remember it (Luke 15:11-32):

Then [Jesus] said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.' So the father divided the property between them.

A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery. When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch; so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled himself with the husks the pigs were eating but no one would let him have them. Then he came to his senses and said, 'How many of my father's hired men have all the food they want and more, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men.'

So he left the place and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him. Then his son said, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we will celebrate by having a feast, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.' And they began to celebrate.

Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. The servant told him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the calf we had been fattening because he has got him back safe and sound.' He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to urge him to come in; but he retorted to his father, 'All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed any orders of yours, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property--he and his loose women--you kill the calf we had been fattening.'

The father said, 'My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.'"

This parable has always bothered me because I felt for the elder son. He had done everything right, and yet his father had never thrown a party for him. And now his younger brother comes along, after wasting everything in vice and licentiousness, and he gets a party? I would be angry too!It does seem unfair, doesn't it? The reason I've always thought it was unfair is because I imagined myself as the elder brother. I am the one who's always done the right thing, obeyed the rules, and lived virtuously. I felt like William Graham Sumner's "Forgotten Man," the man who works hard and well, who takes responsibility for himself and his obligations--and is rewarded by being forgotten by the world, which pays attention instead to the person who's lived a dissolute life.But then I realized: I am the prodigal son. Indeed, we are all prodigal sons. There is not one of us who has not sinned against heaven and his father, least of all me. It was my pride and hubris that led me to fancy myself as blameless and without fault. In fact, however, I too have failed, erred, and sinned. (Haven't we all?) So when I resent the father in the parable for welcoming his prodigal son with open arms, with mercy and forgiveness, and with a party celebrating his return, I was actually asking that I not be welcomed with mercy and forgiveness. What a mistake that was. The parable is not about the other person who sins and yet is forgiven, but about me who has sinned and seeks forgiveness. I am the prodigal son, and I hope and pray that, no matter how many mistakes I have made, I too can be forgiven and welcomed with open arms when I return.There is one other aspect of this parable that had escaped me. Just as I hope that I as a prodigal son can be forgiven for my failings, often I am in the position of the father who has been sinned against. How do I treat people who have lived in ways I disapprove or have wronged me? Just as I hope to be forgiven, so too should I forgive others. One does not need to be a Christian to see the beauty and power of this parable. It is a model not only for how we should treat others' failings with mercy and forgiveness, but also for how we should hope for forgiveness from others, even when we are not entitled to it.

05 February 2016

Here is Nathan O. Hatch, president of Wake Forest University, in the Spring 2016 issue of Wake Forest Magazine:"That was an age [the 1970s] in which students tried to generate controversy and the resisters were patrons of the University. The whole climate on campuses today is markedly different. You can see the developments examined in major articles such as 'The Coddling of the American Mind' in The Atlantic and Todd Gitlin's 'You Are Here to Be Disturbed' in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which laments 'a plague of hypersensitivity.'"Today, students are much more sensitive. That's one major difference between now and the 1970s. In my view, a university is a place of ideas, and, as a student, you should be disturbed. You should confront differences. College should not conform to your expectations. We talk nationally about trigger warnings about anything that is uncomfortable. We need to return to the university as a place for the free exchange of ideas."We want to make this a place where people can disagree but do so with great respect. We have not had blatant attempts on either side to limit speech, but one can see the climate nationally where people have a harder time hearing, listening to and even imaginatively empathizing with those different from them. We need a panoply of speakers across the spectrum. We will have very progressive speakers and very conservative speakers. That's good and healthy. Campus should be that way."At Wake Forest, our values are unwavering: we stand for freedom of expression, serious intellectual engagement and building a community in which the art of conversation is paramount." Well said, Sir.

14 January 2016

I first became interested in the idea as an undergraduate
student when I read Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics, and saw that Aristotle argued that human beings are not only
purposive creatures but have a hierarchy of purpose: proximate ends lead to
intermediate ends, which lead in turn to an ultimate end. Aristotle called the
ultimate end—that is, the end for the sake of which we do everything else but
that is itself pursued only for its own sake—eudaimonia. That word is hard to translate. It is often rendered as
“happiness,” but perhaps “flourishing” is better. I think of it as the
cognizance that one is living a life worth living, that one is using all one’s
capacities in the course of a life that matters.

In graduate school I became interested in the political and
economic institutions that enable people to lead eudaimonic lives. I was
inspired by the example of Adam Smith, who, it seemed to me, was genuinely
interested in both sets of questions—namely, what a life of virtue was, as well
as what the institutions were that could enable and even encourage such lives.

My thinking and reading about these topics led to an interest in the liberalism that grew out of the work of eighteenth-century thinkers
like Adam Smith, as well as David Hume and others. I also became interested in the moral
and political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who had read and been influenced by
both Smith and Hume, as well as nineteenth-century figures like Mill and
Darwin. (Darwin too read and was influenced by Smith.) I thought long and hard about
whether I could integrate my chief intellectual influences—Aristotle, Smith,
and Kant—into a coherent framework that would answer, or at least plausibly
address, my twin questions of the moral life and the institutions supporting
it. The result was my 2006 book, Actual
Ethics, which offered an examination and defense of a liberalism
based on the ideas of Aristotle, Smith, and Kant (among others).

My interest in the nature and conditions of eudaimonia has continued
since then. Indeed, it has deepened, especially with the rise of evolutionary
accounts of morality, with advances in evolutionary psychology, with burgeoning
empirical investigation into comparative political economy, with experimental
economics, and with increased philosophical, psychological, biological, social
scientific, and even medical investigation into what constitutes human
happiness.

When I came to Wake Forest University in 2013, one of my
hopes was that I could continue this investigation, in the context of
an intellectual community constituted by a broad range of discipline,
expertise, and perspective that was nevertheless united in its contention that understanding
what eudaimonia is and how it can be enabled is one of the most important
contributions we might make to the republic of human knowledge.

We are in the early stages of trying to create such a community at
Wake Forest, and I hope the efforts will continue. We hope to have a broad
range of voices, from across the political and economic spectrum, from many
different perspectives on culture and morality, and informed by advances from
many different disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, politics,
economics, religion, the arts, history, literature, business, and classics.

I am deeply gratified that many of my colleagues from many
different perspectives and disciplines have seen merit in the idea of studying
eudaimonia, and I am excited to see what might be the results of our
investigations. I hope not only that we can shed light on these questions that
I believe are so important for understanding the human condition, but also that pursuing them can perhaps in
itself constitute an element of eudaimonic life.

26 November 2015

A lot of people are giving advice about how to talk politics at the family gathering for Thanksgiving dinner. (I won't link to them; they're easy to find.) I thought I would join the fun and add my own recommendations.1. Let others speak. Being thankful for one's blessings is what should be paramount in one's mind at Thanksgiving. But one cannot be thankful if one is thinking primarily about dominating others. Let others shine; let others speak; let others take the spotlight. When they talk about the good things that have happened to them this past year, or talk about their accomplishments or their children's accomplishments, let them. And join in their happiness. Listen attentively. Smile, laugh with them, congratulate them, show love to them. Don't be envious, jealous, peevish, or cynical: that would make you--and everyone else--unhappy. On this one occasion, let go of your ego.2. Remember that you don't know as much as you think. You may think that your opinions about politics, economics, or morality are true, even unquestionably right. But you are an imperfect being, and you might be wrong. Remind yourself of that. And remember that it's okay to learn from others, even if what you're learning is simply what others believe and what makes other people tick. 3. Remember that your family has helped make you what you are. If you have a proverbial "crazy Republican uncle" or "crazy liberal niece," that's okay. In fact, it's awesome! It's part of the rich pageantry of human life and human diversity. Your family has helped to shape you: be mindful of that fact and let yourself enjoy them. You don't need to correct them, you don't need to argue with them, you don't even need to say what you think. And you should not be embarrassed or chagrined or upset for having members of your family who see the world differently from the way you do. That is a beautiful thing. Embrace it and take joy in it.4. Say grace. Even if you're not a believer, take a moment before you eat to say "thank you" for your family. During the meal, ask everyone at the table to take a turn telling everyone what they're thankful for. Listen to what others say. Don't interrupt them, don't put anyone down or roll your eyes; they are people too, every bit as entitled to respect as you are. Saying grace and taking a moment to think--and speak--about what you're thankful for reminds you of your blessings and reminds everyone that you are a family. And that's what is truly important.5. Enjoy this time with your family. It might be a long time before you're together again. This is your family, warts and all: accept them and love them. There is all the time in the world to criticize and judge others; take this time simply to enjoy being in each other's presence. Recall the great memories of your times together. Tell tales. Ask others to talk about what's on their minds. And whatever they say or talk about, take it at face value. Don't get offended or upset or angry. Forgive and forget. For at least this one day, let bygones be bygones. Just enjoy your time together.So many people dread Thanksgiving, but enjoying Thanksgiving can be as simple as changing your attitude. If you are determined not to get upset, if you are determined to be charitable and loving and respectful to everyone, you may just find yourself enjoying your time, not only despite your "crazy" relatives but perhaps even despite yourself. Life is short. We can spend the rest of the year focusing on the many bad things going on in our lives and in the world. On this day, focus on the good. And be thankful for this day.

26 October 2015

"The notion that a sense of safety can lead to disaster is quite intuitive. After all, that's the essence of complacency: let your guard down, take too much for granted, and nasty surprises await. Teenagers famously have too much faith in their own immortality and ability. That's why they hurt themselves so often, in cars, sports, and romance. 'Best safety lies in fear,' Laertes tells his sister, Ophelia, by way of protecting her from Hamlet's sinister overtures. 'Only the paranoid survive' is legendary Intel chief executive Andy Grove's advice to business leaders." --Greg Ip, Foolproof: Why Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015), 6

13 October 2015

[On luck egalitarianism:] "I do not think much of the accident or good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value. An apple carelessly flung into a crowd may hit one person, or it may hit another, or it may hit nobody. The probabilities are precisely the same in this accident theory of self-made men. It divorces a man from his own achievements, contemplates him as a being of chance and leaves him without will, motive, ambition and aspiration. Yet the accident theory is among the most popular theories of individual success. It has the air of mystery which the multitude so well like, and withal, it does something to mar the complacency of the successful. [...]"But the main objection to this very comfortable ["accident"] theory is that, like most other theories, it is made to explain too much. While it ascribes success to chance and friendly circumstances, it is apt to take no cognizance of the very different uses to which different men put their circumstances and their chances."

*****

[On the key to success in life:] "From these remarks it will be evident that, allowing ordinary ability and opportunity, we may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work, into which the whole heart is put, and which, in both temporal and spiritual affairs, is the true miracle worker. Every one may avail himself of this marvellous power, if he will. There is no royal road to perfection."

23 September 2015

"The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties, not in enjoying the repose of a pacific station; penetration and wisdom are the fruits of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure; ardour and generosity are the qualities of a mind roused and animated in the conduct of scenes that engage the heart, not the gifts of reflection or knowledge." --Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), part IV, section IV

17 September 2015

"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice."--Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), III.3.31

04 June 2015

"The anarchist does not want economic freedom
for the sake of shifting a dollar or two from
one man's pocket to another's; or social freedom
for the sake of rollicking in detestable license;
or political freedom for the sake of a mere rash
and restless experimentation in system-making.
His desire for freedom has but the one practical
object, i.e., that men may become as good
and decent, as elevated and noble, as they
might be and really wish to be. Reason, experience and observation lead him to the conviction
that under absolute and unqualified freedom
they can, and rather promptly will, educate
themselves to this desirable end; but that so
long as they are to the least degree dominated
by legalism and authoritarianism, they never
can."--Albert Jay Nock, "On Doing the Right Thing" (1924)

28 May 2015

"If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution. For you, doubtless, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."--George Washington, Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia, May 10, 1789

30 March 2015

"Accordingly I have always been surprised to see some of our Bishops and clergy making such heavy weather about reconciling the Bible story with modern scientific and historical knowledge. Why do they need to reconcile them? If you are the recipient of a message which cheers your heart and fortifies your soul, which promises you reunion with those you have loved in a world of larger opportunity and wider sympathies, why should you worry about the shape or the colour of the travel-stained envelope; whether it is duly stamped, whether the date on the postmark is right or wrong? These matters may be puzzling, but they are certainly not important. What is important is the message and the benefits to you of receiving it. Close reasoning can conduct one to the precise conclusion that miracles are impossible; that 'it is much more likely that human testimony should err, than that the laws of nature should be violated'; and at the same time one may rejoice to read how Christ turned the water into wine in Cana of Galilee or walked on the lake or rose from the dead. The human brain cannot comprehend infinity, but the discovery of mathematics enables it to be handled quite easily. The idea that nothing is true except what we comprehend is silly, and that ideas which our minds cannot reconcile are mutually destructive, sillier still."--Winston Churchill, My Early Life: 1874-1904 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930), 116-17

13 February 2015

[Note: If I were in charge of my own college or university, the following is what I would put on page one of its handbook. It reflects only my own convictions, not necessarily those of my current employer, those of any past or potentially future employer, or those of anyone else.]

STATEMENT OF SCHOLARLY PURPOSE

The purpose of an institution of higher learning is to push forward
the frontiers of knowledge and to beat new paths into unexplored regions of
ignorance. Our mission is to use the knowledge we discover to serve humankind. We
believe this purpose and this mission are honorable and worthy of our
professional dedication.

We will therefore preserve and pass on to future generations
in sacred trust what we believe we have discovered, but we will never presume
to possess the final word on open, contested, or controversial ideas; we will ask
others to learn and consider what we profess, but will not seek to limit what others may deem worthy of exploration, investigation, acceptance, or
rejection; and we will face and engage differing ideas, but we will not
denigrate or demean them, or the people who hold them, merely
because they conflict with what we already believe.

We understand that we can achieve neither our purpose nor
our mission if we peremptorily rule some avenues of inquiry out, prevent some
ideas from receiving a full hearing, or rest content in the pretense that
we already know what we need or will need to know.

This means we will continually and robustly exercise the
freedom to investigate and examine new ideas, to review our prejudices and
settled beliefs critically and regularly, and to confront, in good faith, lines
of thought with which we are unfamiliar or even uncomfortable. We will judge
ideas, assertions, claims, proposals, hypotheses, and conjectures on their merits.
If we believe they are false, we will seek to refute them with arguments and
evidence; if we cannot refute them, we will accept them, but only tentatively and
with a vigilant eye toward future arguments or evidence that may overturn them.

This is the essence of a liberal arts education, without which we are no longer an institution of higher learning. We are the
inheritors of a noble millennia-long tradition seeking unfettered inquiry, and
we honor that heritage by protecting, preserving, and continuing it. If we
cease, limit, or restrict our explorations, we betray not only our purpose and
mission but also our solemn duty as scholars. In voluntarily deciding to join the
life of the gown, we humbly but resolutely accept, affirm, and attest our
charge with the seriousness its importance warrants, and we pledge to
uphold and defend its integrity against all those who would corrupt it.

29 December 2014

"Hills, Seas, Mountains, Rivers, Sun & Moon, & Clouds, Men & Beasts, Angels and Devils, all of them are acted, moved, and inclined according to his pleasure, all of them are about his work indeed, as the result of all in the end shal make it appear, & are servants at his command, by going where he bids go, and coming where he bids come, led by an invisible hand, though in the mean time they knew it not, but thinks they are about their own businesse . . . . Godly men who knows his Will and loves it, are led by it willingly, for they yeeld themselves up to his disposall: but wicked men who have contrary Wills of their own, they can gain no more by resisting, but to be drawn along with it."--Hugh Binning (1627-53), The common principiles [sic] of Christian religion (Glasgow, 1666), 173. Quoted in Peter Harrison, "Adam Smith and the History of the Invisible Hand," Journal of the History of Ideas 72, 1 (January 2011): 43 (reprinted here exactly as it appears in Harrison's text; bold supplied)

22 December 2014

"Thus, since a prince is compelled of necessity to know well how to use the beast, he should pick the fox and the lion, because the lion does not defend itself from snares and the fox does not defend itself from wolves. So one needs to be a fox to recognize snares and a lion to frighten the wolves. Those who stay simply with the lion do not understand this. A prudent lord, therefore, cannot observe faith[*], nor should he, when such observance turns against him, and the causes that made him promise have been eliminated. And if all men were good, this teaching would not be good; but because they are wicked and do not observe faith with you, you also do not have to observe it with them." --Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 2nd ed., Harvey C. Mansfield, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 69*The phrase "observe faith" and its cognates is rendered as "keep one's word" by other translators.

15 December 2014

"I mean not, however, by any thing which I have here said, to throw any odious imputation upon the general character of the servants of the East India company, and much less upon that of any particular persons. It is the system of government, the situation in which they are placed, that I mean to censure; not the character of those who have acted in it. They acted as their situation naturally directed, and they who would have clamoured the loudest against them would, probably, not have acted better themselves." --Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), IV.vii.c.107[H/T: Mike Munger]

01 December 2014

"Moral talk is often rather repugnant. Leveling moral accusations, expressing moral indignation, passing moral judgment, allotting the blame, administering moral reproof, justifying oneself, and, above all, moralizing--who can enjoy such talk? And who can like or trust those addicted to it? The most outspoken critics of their neighbors' morals are usually men (or women) who wish to ensure that nobody should enjoy the good things in life which they themselves have missed and men who confuse the right and the good with their own advancement. When challenged, they can substantiate their charges only by fine phrases. [...]"Suppose it is granted that [moral] sacrifices are necessary. Who is to say which individual or group ought to make them? Everyone is busily demanding that others should shoulder a burden, deny themselves this indulgence, or suffer that hardship, but let someone ask why a certain person should make a given sacrifice and usually he will be offered only bogus reasons. [...]"But, really, how crude, how beside the point, how unconvincing all this is--particularly, when we compare it with the precision and the certainty of the natural sciences. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that by comparison with natural science, morality is a primitive, outmoded, inexact sort of enterprise. Its continuing popularity seems to be based largely on people's disappointment at being less well equipped than their neighbors, on envy of others who have succeeded where they have failed, on the instinct of revenge, and on superstitious hopes and fears that the Lazaruses of this world will be in the bosom of Abraham, while the men successful on earth will be tormented in hell." --Kurt Baier, The Moral Point of View: A Rational Basis of Ethics (New York: Random House, 1967), 3-5.

07 November 2014

My new book, The End of Socialism, has just been published by Cambridge University Press. From the book jacket: "Is socialism morally superior to other systems of political economy, even if it faces practical difficulties? In The End of Socialism, James R. Otteson explores socialism as a system of political economy--that is, from the perspectives of both moral philosophy and economic theory. He examines the exact nature of the practical difficulties socialism faces, which turn out to be greater than one might initially suppose, and then asks whether the moral ideals it champions--equality, fairness, and community--are important enough to warrant attempts to overcome these difficulties nonetheless, especially in light of the alleged moral failings of capitalism. The result is an examination of the 'end of socialism,' both in the sense of the moral goals it proposes and in the results of its unfolding logic."Just in time for your holiday gift-giving!

"[N]othing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties, either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of mankind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of business and interest; cherish reflection; dispose to tranquillity; and produce an agreeable melancholy, which, of all dispositions of the mind, is the best suited to love and friendship."--David Hume, "Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion" (1741)

19 August 2014

"Communal reciprocity is the antimarket principle according to which I serve you not because of what I can get in return by doing so but because you need or want my service, and you, for the same reason, serve me. [...] Doctors, nurses, teachers and others do not, or do not comprehensively, gauge what they do in their jobs according to the amount of money they're likely to get as a result, in the way that capitalists and workers in noncaring occupations do. [...] And the reason for the difference is not that carers are made of morally superior clay, but, in good part, the more cognitive reason that their conception of what is to be produced is guided by a conception of human need: market signals are not necessary to decide what diseases to cure or what subjects to teach, nor are they efficient means of deciding that."

--G. A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism? pp. 39 and 59-60

"In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of making that exertion. This necessity is greatest with those to whom the emoluments of their profession are the only source from which they expect their fortune, or even their ordinary revenue and subsistence. In order to acquire this fortune, or even to ge this subsistence, they must, in the course of a year, execute a certain quantity of work of a known value; and, where the competition is free, the rivalship of competitors, who are all endeavouring to justle one another out of employment, obliges every man to endeavour to execute his work with a certain degree of exactness. The greatness of the objects which are to be acquired by success in some particular professions may, no doubt, sometimes animate the exertion of a few men of extraordinary spirit and ambition. Great objects, however, are evidently not necessary in order to occasion the greatest exertions. Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in mean professions, an object of ambition, and frequently occasion the very greatest exertions. Great objects, on the contrary, alone and unsupported by the necessity of application, have seldom been sufficient to occasion any considerable exertion." --Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, V.i.f.4

28 April 2014

"The last 15 years have been a golden age of innovation in international economics. I must somewhat depressingly conclude, however, that this innovative stuff is not a priority for today's undergraduates. In the last decade of the 20th century, the essential things to teach students are still the insights of Hume and Ricardo. That is, we need to teach them that trade deficits are self-correcting and that the benefits of trade do not depend on a country having an absolute advantage over its rivals. If we can teach undergrads to wince when they hear someone talk about 'competitiveness,' we will have done our nation a great service." --Paul Krugman, "What Do Undergrads Need to Know About Trade?" The American Economic Review 83, 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1993), p. 26

15 January 2014

"At their best, markets have played a central role in the stunning increases in productivity and standards of living in the past two hundred years--increases that far exceeded those of the previous two millennia."But government has also played a major role in these advances, a fact that free-market advocates typically fail to acknowledge. On the other hand, markets can also concentrate wealth, pass environmental costs on to society, and abuse workers and consumers. For all these reasons, it is plain that markets must be tamed and tempered to make sure they work to the benefit of most citizens. And that has to be done repeatedly, to ensure that they continue to do so."--Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, "The Price of Inequality" (June 11, 2012)

14 January 2014

"We dissent, secondly, because the powers vested in Congress by this [proposed United States] constitution, must necessarily annihilate and absorb the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the several states, and produce from their ruins one consolidated government, which from the nature of things will be an iron banded despotism, as nothing short of the supremacy of despotic sway could connect and govern these United States under one government." --from the Address of the Minority of the Pennsylvania Convention, December 12, 1787 (italics in the original)

08 January 2014

"Socialism may be worthless as a scheme, but it is not meaningless as a symptom. Rousseau's theory of the origin of society, of the social contract, and of a cure for all the social evils by a return to a state of nature, had, as we all know now, no more relation to fact than the dreams of an illiterate drunkard; but they were not without value as a vague and symbolical expression of certain evils from which the France of his day was suffering." --William Hurrell Mallock (1849-1923), A Critical Examination of Socialism (1907), chap. 16

12 November 2013

"It is something far more important than a sordid desire for gain. It could not succeed on that basis. It is dominated by a more worthy impulse; it rests on a higher law. True business represents the mutual organized effort of society to minister to the economic requirements of civilization. It is an effort by which men provide for the material needs of each other. While it is not an end in itself, it is the important means for the attainment of a supreme end. It rests squarely on the law of service. It has for its main reliance truth and faith and justice. In its larger sense it is one of the greatest contributing forces to the moral and spiritual advancement of the race."

--President Calvin Coolidge, "Government and Business," Address before the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, New York City, November 19, 1925

This is a tremendous opportunity for me. The Center is beginning its sixth year of existence, having been funded by continuing support from the BB&T Foundation. The Center's mission is to encourage the study of capitalism in all its facets, and, more generally, to explore the institutions that enable human flourishing. We want to know how a society of free and responsible persons can live together peacefully, and we want to examine the political, economic, moral, and cultural institutions that encourage prosperity and humanity.

Wake Forest's motto is "Pro Humanitate," which is usually translated as "for humanity." But the Latin word humanitas is much broader, and deeper, than what the English word "humanity" usually means today. It indicates not only human beings, but humane life. It denotes a distinctly human virtue whereby people treat each other with the respect, dignity, and compassion that humanity requires. In this way, "Pro Humanitate" means something like: "in the service of promoting a fully humane life for all." That captures perfectly the mission of the Center for the Study of Capitalism.

I emphasize that the Center's name is "Center for the Study of Capitalism," not the "Center for Capitalism." That is a small but momentous distinction. We are interested in figuring out what these prosperity-enabling institutions are, and promoting them, whatever they are. Our investigations will thus be nonideological and nonpartisan. Capitalism has been a source of tremendous, even unprecedented, prosperity; like all human institutions, however, it is not perfect. We will want to examine it disinterestedly, understanding and exposing both the good and the bad, and then promoting the former and discouraging the latter. In other words, the Center's work will be not only rigorous but serious. There is too much at stake to take any other stance.

For those of you who know me or my work, you will recognize that these are my own central scholarly and intellectual concerns. So this position is a great fit.

We also hope to create a true intellectual community comprised of people from various disciplines and perspectives who are united in their commitment to the spirit of the Center's enterprise. If you are a person who shares our sense of purpose, and might like to associate with us somehow, donate to us, or just keep abreast of our activities, please reach out to me and let me know.

As excited as I am to begin this new chapter of my career, I must also admit to some sadness to be leaving Yeshiva University. Before all else, I will miss my students. As I have had occasion to say to many people in many forums, the students at Yeshiva are outstanding--unlike any others I have encountered elsewhere. Their seriousness of purpose, their intelligence and diligence, and their genuine interest in ideas, all combined with a typically light, even humorous disposition, have made them a delight to work with. Every day I have learned something new from them, and every class I taught they kept me on my toes.

To my students: It has been my honor and my privilege to work with you, and to make whatever meager contribution I could to your development. You have demanded the very best from me, and I have willingly given it; but you have given me your best in return, which has made everything more than worthwhile. A professor could ask for no more from his students. I thank you for what you have given me.

11 July 2013

"It is an error to divide people into the living and the dead: there are people who are dead-alive, and people who are alive-alive. The dead-alive also write, walk, speak, act. But they make no mistakes; only machines make no mistakes, and they produce only dead things. The alive-alive are constantly in error, in search, in questions, in torment."

24 June 2013

"Even if politicians eventually allow themselves to be bought off, their minatory presence reduces the expected value of entrepreneurial ability and specific-capital investments. The possibility that government may reduce returns to their capital unless paid off reduces firms' incentives to invest in the first place. It also induces inefficient shifts to investment in more mobile or salvageable (that is, less firm specific) forms of capital as insurance against expropriation. In either event, the allocative losses from politicans' ability to extract the returns from private capital are measured by investments that are never made in the industry threatened."--Fred S. McChesney, "Rent Extraction and Rent Creation in the Economic Theory of Regulation," The Journal of Legal Studies 16, 1 (January 1987): 101-118. [Editorial comment: Frédéric Bastiat, call your office!]

14 June 2013

I appeared on the Wall Street Journal's "OpinionLive" yesterday. Its excellent host Mary Kissel, who is a member of the editorial board of the WSJ, interviewed me about my objections to recent revelations about the NSA surveillance of American Citizens:[One note of self-criticism: At the 2:23 mark, I misspoke: I refer to the "Virginia Articles of Confederation," when I meant to say the "Virginia Declaration of Rights."]

31 May 2013

My book Adam Smith, which was first published by Continuum in 2011 as part of John Meadowcroft's "Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers" series, is finally coming out in paperback. It is slated to appear on August 1st, and will be brought out by Bloomsbury Publishing, which bought the rights. (Here's a linkif you would like to pre-order it.)The book gives an overview of Smith's life and works, and it offers an assessment of what Smith got wrong and what he got right. (Spoiler: It turns out there is a lot more of the latter than the former.) The book includes a bibliography, and it closes with a discussion of whether Smith is in fact "conservative" or "libertarian"--or something else entirely. It is intended for the educated lay person, and our hope is that professors will use it as a complementary text in courses that discuss Smith. I hope you will have a look.P.S. What do you think of the cover?

James R Otteson PhD

About Me

I am executive director of the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism, the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics, and Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I am also a Senior Scholar at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, DC, a Research Professor in the Freedom Center and Department of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in California. I have taught previously at Yeshiva University, New York University, Georgetown University, and the University of Alabama.